April 28, 2014

OBVIOUSLY, THE SOLUTION IS TO REDOUBLE OUR EFFORTS: 50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back. And note this: “Residents also identify a more insidious cause of the current social unraveling: the disappearance of the only good jobs they ever knew, in coal mining.”

I live in rural Appalachia and it just annoys me when urban people come in and do these "oh, poor hill folk" stories. Kevin Williamson at National Review did one a few months back. They don't understand the area. They never will.

There are a lot of things you have to keep in mind here. First, despite all the article's talk about everyone being in and out of jail, the crime rate in rural Appalachia is extremely low, especially violent crime. In many ways, despite the lack of economic opportunities, the place is a paradise for someone like me, who can work from home and afford to drive an hour and a half to the airport for business trips 1 to 4 times a month.

Most of the crime revolves around drugs, or petty property crime. The lives of most of these people would be much easier if it weren't for the War on Drugs. The biggest single problem with being a drug user here is getting sent to jail and being rendered unemployable. The actual effects of the drugs are a much lesser problem, and those who really succumb to addiction are ne'er-do-wells who pretty much would have screwed their lives up some other way, given half a chance. It's not as if the War on Drugs is succeeding in its goal of keeping drugs out of people's hands, obviously, so why make their lives harder by jailing them and stigmatizing them?

As for the economics of the area, it's true that leftist policies have killed most of the opportunity. Coal-mining and steel were the only things Appalachia had going for it. It's too remote and too hilly for much else -- it's not even a good place to build a factory, as the population is sparse and poorly educated and it's far from supply sources. Why would a factory want to locate out here? What factories and industries there are will tend to locate near the cities (Wheeling, Charleston, Huntington) and the Ohio River towns, not the deep backwoods counties like McDowell County or the county I live in, in the Appalachian section of southeast Ohio. It's the lush, verdant analog to the vast empty expanses of wasteland and mountains out west, except it's just incredibly beautiful enough that people want to live here.

And, the people that want to live here, they are two types: the people who can make a living out here, and the people who can't. The government incentivizes a welfare culture by making it just possible to subsist out here without working. Cost of living is extremely low, so welfare rates set by economic factors in more prosperous urban areas allow people to sqeak by here. These people need to get off the dole and go where the jobs are. Period. If that empties out the place, so be it. You can't just pretend that some economic miracle is going to happen out here. Stop feeling sorry for them and sending them money. They need to be encouraged to get out.

When the population has subsided to what the area can economically support, the problem will go away. (show less)

I recently visited my hometown in northwestern NC. Jobs are scarce, the downtown looks like a disaster area, and the mood is gloomy. The area is absolutely gorgeous and blessed with natural resources, but it will never be a place with an abundance of jobs.

The primary reason is transportation. Mitchel County was the only solidly Republican county in NC for 115 years after the Civil War. The Democrat dominated state governments never invested a dime in local infrastructure, and it still shows today.

Another primary reason was the social mores of the area. We used to kid about how at election time the Baptist preachers, local sheriff, and bootleggers campaigned together in the same car against going "wet" but it was darn near that bad. Nearby Watauga County was blessed with state and federal transportation money, and a more liberal attitude towards alcohol and entertainment in general. Tourism, vacation housing, and retirement housing has grown like crazy in Watauga County, and it was largely due to their fighting for conditions that would encourage high-end tourism. The Boone area is literally covered up in ski resorts and high end golf courses. Since 1970 Appalachian State has grown from a 1,500 student "teachers' college" to a 22,000 student well-respected university.

None of this happened by accident. In one county, people fought for the things that would build the only kind of economy that works in what is really rugged country. Just 30 miles away another county is mired in joblessness and poverty. Both had roughly equal opportunity. The difference was that one made a conscious effort to use the assets it possessed and the other did not.

Both would be better off if the federal gubmint sent the gas tax generated transportation money to the local officials and then got the hell out of the way.

I live in rural Appalachia and it just annoys me when urban people come in and do these "oh, poor hill folk" stories. Kevin Williamson at National Review did one a few months back. They don't understand the area. They never will.

There are a lot of things you have to keep in mind here. First, despite all the article's talk about everyone being in and out of jail, the crime rate in rural Appalachia is extremely low, especially violent crime. In many ways, despite the lack of economic opportunities, the place is a paradise for someone like me, who can work from home and afford to drive an hour and a half to the airport for business trips 1 to 4 times a month.

Most of the crime revolves around drugs, or petty property crime. The lives of most of these people would be much easier if it weren't for the War on Drugs. The biggest single problem with being a drug user here is getting sent to jail and being rendered unemployable. The actual effects of the drugs are a much lesser problem, and those who really succumb to addiction are ne'er-do-wells who pretty much would have screwed their lives up some other way, given half a chance. It's not as if the War on Drugs is succeeding in its goal of keeping drugs out of people's hands, obviously, so why make their lives harder by jailing them and stigmatizing them?

As for the economics of the area, it's true that leftist policies have killed most of the opportunity. Coal-mining and steel were the only things Appalachia had going for it. It's too remote and too hilly for much else -- it's not even a good place to build a factory, as the population is sparse and poorly educated and it's far from supply sources. Why would a factory want to locate out here? What factories and industries there are will tend to locate near the cities (Wheeling, Charleston, Huntington) and the Ohio River towns, not the deep backwoods counties like McDowell County or the county I live in, in the Appalachian section of southeast Ohio. It's the lush, verdant analog to the vast empty expanses of wasteland and mountains out west, except it's just incredibly beautiful enough that people want to live here.

And, the people that want to live here, they are two types: the people who can make a living out here, and the people who can't. The government incentivizes a welfare culture by making it just possible to subsist out here without working. Cost of living is extremely low, so welfare rates set by economic factors in more prosperous urban areas allow people to sqeak by here. These people need to get off the dole and go where the jobs are. Period. If that empties out the place, so be it. You can't just pretend that some economic miracle is going to happen out here. Stop feeling sorry for them and sending them money. They need to be encouraged to get out.

When the population has subsided to what the area can economically support, the problem will go away. (show less)

And don't forget the feds coming after Moonshiners! That has been going on for generations... although it was more of a lifestyle attitude than the modern drug crop growers. Part of the spirit of living in there is bound up in the 'we will do it our way because it works for us' attitude, a good part of which migrated out when industrialization started to draw people from the region.

The problem with the drug growers/distributors/dealers is that they won't leave you alone if what you do gets in their way. They figure that just because people are poor they can be intimidated. And yet the common backwoods currency has a name to it that implies something else: The Browning.

As stated, they left Holland. They left Holland because it was too free. They came to America to establish a Christian colony where they could enforce their religious views. I am a Christian, and so not at all adverse to their spirituality. But Christianity does not work with coercion, it is un-Christian.

The Puritans didn't leave England, they left Holland, to which they had been more or less banished following the restoration of the British monarchy after the death of Cromwell.

You could say that the Puritans were persecuted, but only after they had used their time in power to persecute others. Imagine an overgrown temperance movement combined with a ban on public life and that is pretty much how England was when they held sway.

Indeed. The war on poverty has been a defacto war on the intact black family and it has had devastating results. The social ills that are blamed on poverty and poverty itself can all be traced to the single- parent "family."

It's interesting reflecting on those lost jobs, given that NPR today did a report on the move of the Toyota HQ from SoCal to Texas. There was lots of oh, THEY'LL be sorry -- the mayor of Torrance -- of Torrance! -- says it will be real hard for Toyota to hire just as qualified people in the suburbs of Dallas. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at that. It's like the mayor of Detroit shaking his head grimly at the news that a tech company is moving to Silicon Valley. Man, that's not even a city. What kind of schools they got there? Bet they don't have a real art museum or anything.

Missing just a little awareness of the modern world, sport.

Also missing was any kind of self-awareness. Say, do you think just possibly some of the activities of government of which we (NPR) love might have contributed to this? Of course not! Why...we (the mayor of Torrance again) opened a business development center five years ago. I mean, we've had color glossy brochures and ad campaigns and everything. What more could we have done? There was a realization that just possibly Texas may have "lured" Toyota with some kind of "special" deals, e.g. like the "special" deal they offer to all taxpayers of not taxing them up the wazoo. (In California, taxpayers are a minority special interest, so this is actually logically consistent.)

Anyway, what these stories make clear is that lefties cannot get a clue. They have infinite power of rationalization. They will never reconsider their prescriptions for society, however gross and ugly the pain they produce. You cannot reason with them, you cannot compromise with them. They must simply be driven out or marginalized.

That's the Sheriff's wife who is from a family of 15. She's probably older -- that was much more common in the past -- and by being wife of the Sheriff, is one of the prosperous ones. If her parents were collecting food stamps back in 1964, that probably puts her or some of her siblings around 50. No you aren't supposed to feel sorry for her.

I'm making a separate post elsewhere, but I live in rural Appalachia and it just annoys me when urban people come in and do these "oh, poor hill folk" stories. Kevin Williamson at National Review did one a few months back. They don't understand the area. They never will.

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